A/N: Because there is not enough Isshin/Rukia family fluff in this world, and there needs to be. Do you honestly expect me to believe he didn't try and get to know her, didn't tease her the way he'd tease Ichigo? Do you expect me to believe that after his shinigami powers became known, he didn't go up and thank her for brightening up his son's world? Do you really expect me to believe he doesn't hardcore ship IchiRuki like the rest of us because let me tell you I don't buy that okay.

Anyway, on with the show! Hope you guys enjoy, and feedback is always appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

The Last Time

She'd just wanted a glimpse.

Really.

Just one glimpse – one indulgance, one look into the life she had frequented before. She'd wanted to see the way he might've lived, had she and the hollows not gotten there first. She'd wanted a day to convince herself that she'd made the right decision in keeping her distance.

She comes, exactly a year from the day he lost sight of her, under the guise of a "personal day". If Captain Ukitake wonders after her motives when she requests the day off, he doesn't say anything, and she's grateful for that, at least.

She contemplates getting a gigai, but figures eventually that it would only lead to questions about where she's been, and a little more heartache than she is admittedly ready to handle. No, she'll stay anonymous for this, just check up on him, them – no one even has to know. She's so good at muffling her spiritual pressure by now that she might've been good for the stealth force, had she the stomach or the precision for ruthless assassinations.

Chad is doing well, she finds out first. As kind and as quiet as he's ever been.

Ishida is well, too, she supposes – taking over where Ichigo left off, where her idiot replacement never managed to pick back up.

Inoue is as bubbly and as odd as ever, and there's something strange about her, something still undoubtedly quirky, but undeniably mature, too. She's grown.

They all have.

She wonders if the war did that – if it's something that had always been there, and it's only taken twelve months of separation to see it. She wonders if they'd see it in her, if she decided to stop playing the coward and show her face.

She saves him for last.

(the best for last, some annoying voice in the back of her head sighs)

She stands on the street outside the clinic, by the lamppost she'd bled all over when she'd given him her powers, so long ago now. It's sunset by the time she arrives, the street cast with a pretty orange glow.

She watches him carefully, from where he walks towards the gate to his home, sluggish and –

And her heart stops. Her blood boils. Something inside her breaks, flakes away in little bits at sight of the thing living in his eyes.

He looks sad.

He looks pathetic.

She wants to yell. To scream. To have her foot connect with the back of his head, to watch him fall over, to see the spark she loved dance in those big brown eyes of his. She wants to pull him up and kick the ass of whatever's dragged her boy down, but she can't.

Because she knows what dragged him down.

It's the same thing that pulled him up, that first time around, so many months ago. The desire to fight and defend, to protect, the ability to do it then.

The inability to do it now.

She slumps against the lamppost and feels the energy filter out of her. She can't do this. She shouldn't have done this.

This whole thing was just one big mess.

It was nice, she supposes, seeing the others, but the payoff from that is far outweighed by her guilt here. The sun sinks low on the horizon, but she doesn't move.

She just wants to stay.

Just a bit longer.

Then she'll go. She probably won't return.

She sighs and peels herself away from the metal at her back only when the moon begins to rise. It's swollen and full, tonight, the unearthly glow her only light as she lifts her sword and prepares a senkaimon.

A hand on her wrist stops her from going. Her shoulders stiffen, her feet spacing out automatically as her body instinctively prepares to defend itself, but the fight leaves her when her eyes shift to look at the interloper and lock with two very familiar, very dark orbs.

"My lovely third daughter has returned," Isshin says, calm but gleeful, eyes dancing. His smile is bright. "It's been too long."

She shrugs. Not really, she wants to say. Not really, not for them. A lot could happen in twelve months, but then, a lot could happen in twelve days, too. It's nothing to them, these beings who have lived lifetimes over.

It's nothing to her.

(it's everything, actually)

"Just a year," she murmurs, and his eyes soften a bit.

"A year too long," he says firmly, giving her wrist a gentle squeeze before letting go. She wants to run, to try the senkaimon again, but he'd probably just stop her. He was a former captain, after all, and for all her talent and capability, she's no match for that.

The silence lulls, however, borders on uncomfortable. It's strained and heavy and littered through with all the things she wants to say – how are the girls how is the clinic are the hollows manageable are you okay is he okay – but they all get stuck in her throat, halfway up.

She shifts.

She doesn't know what to say.

So he says it for her, seeking out and assuaging her awkwardness, like he always seems to be able to do, even when he's being silly or perverted. She thinks it might just be a parent thing. Or maybe an Isshin thing. A Shiba thing, probably, looking back on Kaien and Kuukaku.

"Come inside."

"I really shouldn't."

The refusal is meant to sound casual, as if she's busy and shouldn't even be here, slacking off, but he sees right through her, dark eyes cutting her to the quick and allowing the crack in her voice to widen, the last word ending on a bit of a choke.

Another Shiba thing, probably.

Or maybe it's a Rukia thing.

"I really shouldn't," she tells him again, composing herself. "I wouldn't – I shouldn't even be here –"

"He misses you," Isshin says, nodding to the window where she knows Ichigo's room is. How many times had she jumped out that window, wrapped up in a gigai and a borrowed uniform, in hiding or just for the hell of it? How many times had she sat on Ichigo's bed and watched the moon? How many times had they watched the dawn break together, perched on that windowsill, thighs pressed together, just sitting in silence as the moon sank low, as the sun rose higher?

Too many times, really.

She shakes herself.

"He needs to move on," she says carefully after a moment, some steely glint making her eyes shine. "Focus on school, you know. Get a job. Go to college. H-have a family." She bites her lip to punish herself for the tremor in her voice.

It hurts, to think he'll one day brush everything off as some passing dream, to think maybe he'll settle with a girl like Tatsuki or Orihime. And it's not that they're not wonderful women, or that she thinks they won't make him happy.

She knows they will, if it's what he truly wants.

"All I ever wanted was for him to be happy," she says, almost to herself. The broken thing inside of her cracks a little more.

Isshin's smile is soft, fatherly when she finally gets the courage to look at him. "Then you should know that those things, as simple and as fulfilling as they may seem to you, will not make him happy. He was only ever happy after he met you."

He pauses, eyes drifting down to look at the ground, the space where she'd collapsed after being bitten by that hollow.

"I knew you were there, you know. In the house. With your limited spiritual pressure at the time, coupled with the gigai you were wearing, it wasn't easy trying to figure out what felt… off, in the house. It took me a while to figure it out, and when I did, I was understandably concerned. A bit angry, too. I'd already given up on Soul Society, and the fact you were here just threw everything off, every plan I had for living out the rest of my days as Dr. Kurosaki, Totally Human and Not at All Remarkable."

He sighs, leans back against the lamppost, nudging her shoulder with his arm, playfully. "But then I noticed his eyes. They were just so… bright. His scowl wasn't as deep, and even if he didn't smile, that look in his eye…" he cuts himself off and shakes his head. "Rukia, I think you underestimate just how much you did for that boy. He was happy with you, and since you left, he hasn't been the same."

She is quiet for a moment, pulled into silence by the raw intensity and pure sincerity of his words. She thinks back to the sad-eyed boy she'd seen earlier, shuffling back into his house like he was heading to the execution block.

So lost in her thoughts she is, she doesn't notice when Isshin peels himself away from the lamppost until he's in front of her, hand reaching out to ruffle her hair. "You don't have to come inside if you don't want to. But you're always welcome. Through hell and high water, the day you saved my boy's life was the day you became family. That doesn't change."

Something stings at her eyes and she hopes the watery smile she gives him is enough. He smiles and pulls her forward to plant a quick kiss on her forehead, and then he's gone, pulling away quickly.

"I really hope the neighbors didn't see that," he tells her conspiratorially, "They already think I'm off my rocker. Soul King knows what they'd wonder if they saw me talking to thin air."

She's confused for a moment before she remembers she never brought a gigai. She giggles as he waves her away, that silly glint coming back into his eyes. "I'll see you around, my precious third daughter. And… congratulations, by the way."

She follows his gaze to the vice-captain's badge sitting on her arm, and turns back to him quickly, the words "thank you" bubbling up in her throat. Before she can say them, however, he's already crossed the street and entered the house.

She shakes her head and prepares the senkaimon. It's another four months until she comes back to Karakura Town, in the end, and another five until she enters the Kurosaki home again.

But when she does, seventeen months down the line from that fateful day under that burning blue sky, she finds just as much warmth waiting as when she left it. Yuzu fawns over her hair and Karin asks tentative questions about being a shinigami.

There's something warm and stable in Isshin's eyes, under the frankly ridiculous exterior, and now, when Ichigo turns to look at her, she doesn't miss the sparks in his eyes.